The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-03-09
How Educate Our Girls TO be
Farmers Wives.

The following paper, sent us by a
friend of the author, is by Miss b. M.
Clapp, formerly of Moretown, and at
one time preceptress at Newbury. Miss
Clapp is now superintendent of schools
at st. Croix county, Wisconsin, having
been reelected for her fourth term.
1t is rather lengthy for these columns,
but is as good as it is long, and we
commend its perusal by every man,
woman and child to whom it NAV
come:
Don't educate them at all to be farm
ers' wives. Some of them will be doc
tors wives, some ministers wives, law
yers' wives-and, alas. some will be
old maids. They don't believe it, but
the world always has had some unmar-
ried women, and it always will Some
of us are so vain as to think it has room
for few, and there is no need to teach
the girls to shun them so assiduously
as to run their heads into ineXtricable
difficulties. Do not educate the girls
for any particular position exclusively.
Educate them first to be girls-frank,
generous and true; then to be women
intelligent, self-reliant, efficient. Then
they will be ready to take up the walk
of life in any position. The question
then is, How shall we educate our
girls? Teach them first, last and
always the nobility of work and the
disgrace of idleness; that no necessary
work cheerfully done is drudgery.
We only make it such when we do it
with drudge's spirit. Mothers, farm
ers' wives, do not teach your girls that
you have all the hardships of life; that
you want them to 90 to school and get
an education, so they will not be obliged
to work as you have done. The schools
have been accused of teaching the
children that the prime object of an
education is to avoid work; but it is
not the schools, it is the parent actu-
ated by false affection that has sought
to instill the thought that educated peo-
pie can live easy. Teach them that
every position has its lights and shad-
ows. Let your own attractive, cheer
full home be an obiect-lesson on the
lights of the farmers life.
In these days of progress the farmer
has his agricultural journal and his
dairy paper, to which he gives full faith
and credence. He studies the best
food and conditions for fattening hogs,
the best fertilizer for his crops, but
he doesn't believe much in new-fangled
notions about wholesome food for his
children or the most profitable books
for them to read. He forgets, he
doesn't think-perhaps he doesn't
know-that the air they breathe, the
food they eat, the sights they see and
the sounds they hear all affect their
present and future welfare. He is
simply oblivious to their natures and
needs. He hasn't time. He has en-
tered upon the business of acquiring
property, probably for his children,
that he may be able to place them in
good circumstances by and by when
they ought to be able to place them
selves there. To acquire property is
well when it is sought as a means, not
as an end
The first, grand, supreme business of
every parent is the education, the bring
ing up of the child-the proper and
well-balanced development of the three
fold nature-a business in comparison
with which the accumulation of money
as an end sinks into nothingness. Yet
how often is it the case that the whole
vigorous, pushing, manly nature of the
father is thrown into the one purpose
of making and saving money, the en-
ergies of the mother all consumed and
literally licked up in the attempt to do
her part of this great life-work. Both
deny themselves every luxury and even
necessary comforts (and the children
come in for full share of the denial)
with what would seem to be worthy
purpose of saving for the family, per-
haps the very cOmmendable one of
giving them an education and desirable
advantages by and by. Everything has
its time, and there is only one royal
opportunity for the parent to meet his
obligations to the children, to set their
hayward feet in the right direction, to
provide surroundings that will give
their unfolding powers freedom, tone
and vigor. The opportunity squandered
and it were better for him that mill
stone were hanged about his neck, fol
surely he has offended these little ones.
Then ! say again, give the home all the
comforts, all the leisure for improve
ment, all the refinement that honest
endeavor and wise planning will secure
for it.
Many woman has received money
by the last will and testament of her
father to be squandered by dissipated
husband-money of which she was
robbed in her childhood, and which
had it been judiciously used for hel
proper training, would have put hei
beyond present needs. Give the child
sufficient release from drudgery and
stinginess to allow the bud to unfold in
freedom. Give him enough to do tc
keep him from evil thoughts, to gain
a clear understanding of his relations
to God and humanity, and you have
done that which will yield better in,
terest than back dividends
Don't let the girl jump from child
hood into long dresses, the companions
ship of young gentlemen and late even.
ings, with the whirl and excitement OF
the dance and the rink till she loses hei
head. Give her worthy girlhood in
which to mature physically, mentally
and morally-a girlhood in which to be
companion, friend and help TO hel
mother, sharer in the joys and sor
rows of the family, where she may learr
to do by doing the many little things
that 90 TO make up well-ordered house
hn1I